Review: The Appeal - Janice Hallett *****

By Brian Clegg

Wow. This is the most original modern murder mystery novel I’ve read in a long time. When I opened it and found that the text was primarily made up of page after page of emails, my heart sank. Admittedly epistolary novels are hardly something new, dating back to the very first entries in the field, but while some can be delightful (one of my favourite Gene Wolfe books, The Sorcerer’s House, for example), some can be heavy going. I shouldn’t have worried, though – these emails, primarily between members of the Fairway Players amateur dramatics group – tell a story beautifully and extremely engagingly.

The title is a double reference – much of the book is concerned with an appeal to raise money for a novel medical treatment for the granddaughter of the am dram group’s leaders, the Haywards. However, the whole thing is framed as a collection of evidence that is being assessed by a pair of young legal associates, whose boss wants them to view the documents dispassionately to test the grounds for an appeal for a sentence of murder that was passed on one of the central characters in the email exchange.

Once we get past the murder itself, there are two additional sets of information passed to our intrepid investigators, Olufemi and Charlotte, before they finally reach the same conclusion as their boss. I really can’t remember when I’ve devoured a book with such enthusiasm – it is both extremely clever in format and beautifully structured – Janice Hallett has done a wonderful job.

I only have two very small moans. One is that a critical factor towards the end depends on something that has pretty much been scientifically dismissed now. The other is that towards the end of the book we spend a fair amount of time in discussions between Olufemi and Charlotte as they try to work out what happened. Although occasional ‘The What’s Up’ interventions dictated by their boss who doesn’t get the technology are amusing, I found these sections lacked the engagement and drive of the email exchanges. They were significantly harder to follow (not helped by the WhatsApp parts being printed in black on grey, which made them hard to read).

However, I must stress those are small moans indeed. I’ve come late to this book, which was published in 2021, but I find it hard to believe I’ll read a murder mystery to match it this year.

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Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.